I watched La La Land for the first time over Christmas, sitting down with some of my family post-roast.

Musicals aren't really my jam and the opening scene dancing on cars did little to allay those fears.

But once Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling properly come into play, I found myself immersed.

Written and directed by Damien Chazelle, it explores the quiet obsession of two people trying to work out what it really means to “make it” with Hollywood as the perfect backdrop.

It also shines a lens on what may have to be sacrificed along the way...

I won't give it away if you haven't seen it, but there's no neat conclusion.

Akin to the famous Sliding Doors, it offers a glimpse of parallel lives.

Not just the life you end up living, but the one that could have been.

After it finished, my mum and sister were pretty clear-eyed about it. Both characters, they said, got what they wanted. Their dreams came true.

Yet I was left with something closer to melancholy than contentment.

The film doesn’t deny that dreams can come true. It suggests that even when they do, there can still be an ache for the paths not taken, and the selves we leave behind.
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In that sense, finishing my own book trilogy, 9 years on from the first idea, has felt similar. The dream did come true, the work was completed, and yet alongside the satisfaction sits something more bittersweet.

All the wanting, the striving, and the version of myself (and Claude) who began it now belong to a different life.
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Which is probably why, a few minutes later, we were back in the kitchen, loading plates into the dishwasher and weighing up whether to have more Christmas pudding.
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Hope you have a good end to 2025 and hatch a few dreams of your own for the new year,

J. R. Roberts